Freedom for ghouls
by Natsumi-Giita
Summary: A ghoul organization called 'the pigeons' is trying to establish ghoul rights. But if they succeed, how will the people of Tokyo learn to accept ghouls? And how will this affect Touka, Kaneki and everyone else?
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: I do not own Tokyo Ghoul, nor do i own any of its characters. All rights belong to Sui Ishida**

 **Note: just to clarify, this story takes place one year after Kaneki got tortured but instead of making a group with Banjou and Tsukiyama he decided to go back to Anteiku right away.**

Touka stood behind the counter of Anteiku, cleaning up the store so they could open in half an hour. Nishiki and Kaneki were both 15 minutes late. She expected this from Nishiki, but Kaneki? She had to remember to give him a good scolding later.

KLING

Touka turned towards the entrance as soon as she heard the bell above the door make a sound. _Speak of the devil._ She was facing an exhausted Kaneki, his face covered in sweat.

"You're late, you know." She took another look at him and noticed more of his black hair was growing back, it was nice not to be greeted anymore by a gloomy man with striking white hair like last year.

Kaneki practically launched himself on one of the chairs from exhaustion, almost knocking it over in the process "I'm sorry, I got distracted at home while getting ready and had to run."

"What could possibly make you so distracted to forget that you have a job." She rolled her eyes, as if to state that she didn't believe him.

"You didn't pay any attention to the news?" Kaneki asked "It was about the pigeons."

"Why should I care about birds?" Touka said while pouring a cup of coffee.

"No not real birds, the ghoul organization. You remember them right?

"That organization that's trying to establish ghoul rights? Yeah right, what a joke as if that's actually possible. What kind of name is 'the pigeons' anyway." Touka almost burst out in laughter about the idea itself. Ghouls have always been hunted for the _monsters_ they are. Nothing could change that and surely not a joke like that organization.

"Maybe they call themselves that because a pigeon represents freedom. If they managed to get covered on the news then they must be getting their point across right? And the organization is getting bigger by the day, I heard even Banjou and his group joined."

"Banjou really is an idiot. Just because he's weak doesn't mean he should jump at any chance to avoid fighting. Let's see if he still enjoys this little game when the CCG 'accepts' their offer and slaughters them on the spot " Touka finished making her coffee and continued cleaning the counter.

"Well it's his decision, he can do whatever he wants." Kaneki stretched his hand out to the coffee Touka was holding " Thanks for the coffee."

Touka merely scoffed at him " Who said this was for you? Make your own coffee. It's for the manager, he's upstairs and sick."

"The manager? Sick? He's about the last person I expected to get sick." Kaneki stood up from his chair with a sigh as he picked up the coffee can and a cup from the counter, pouring it slowly like the manager taught him.

"Well everyone gets sick don't they." Touka said already halfway up the stairs.

BZZZZ

Kaneki turned his head to the direction of the sound, noticing it came from Touka's phone. He would notice it from a mile away with that bunny keychain. "Hey Touka, you have a text from Yoriko."

"Yeah yeah, I heard it I'm not deaf." She turned around and came back down from the stairs handing the coffee to Kaneki. "Can you bring this to the manager?"

"As you wish." Kaneki said while making a bow and failing not to laugh.

She sent an angry glare in his direction. "Stop joking and just bring it to him already." Touka took her phone, reading the message from Yoriko.

 _Do you want to go shopping and have a picnic with me tomorrow? You don't have to work on Sunday right?_

The shopping sounded great to her but the picnic not so much. Yoriko's food always tasted worse to her than other food since she was aiming to become a chef. Then again, it was not like she was going to refuse a day out with her best friend.

 _Sure, why not. I'll meet you tomorrow morning at your apartment._

Just as she sent the text the door opened for the second time this morning. Nishiki walked inside with giant bags under his eyes.

"Well it took you long enough to get here, any other place would have fired you a long time ago. And what's with the bags, skipped a night of sleep?."

"Oh shut up Shitty Touka. Yes I did barely sleep, got a problem with that?"

"I can see you're as grumpy as always." Kaneki said while closing the door that led upstairs behind him. " So why did you barely sleep?"

"I umm… I had a meeting with the pigeons…"

"WHAT?! " Kaneki and Touka both screamed in unison.

"Fuck!" Touka dropped her phone in the process and immediately picked it back up. "You of all people joined the pigeons, you can't tell me you believe in that bullshit as well?!"

"Well I was thinking maybe this would be a good way for me and Kimi to stay together without having to hide." Nishiki shifted from left to right, clearly thinking he made a bad decision by telling what he was up to last night.

"Well if you've been at the meeting then do you know what their plans are?" Kaneki asked, secretly curious about the organization.

"Well, they talked a lot about the plan they finished to try and get news coverage. Which obviously succeeded seeing by what was on the news this morning. They also picked their slogan last night."

" _Freedom for ghouls"_

 **Aaaaand done. This honestly took longer than I expected, but it was fun nonetheless. I hope you had fun reading ^_^. Don't forget to leave a review. Since this is my first fanfic I'm open for any criticism to try and improve.**

 **Peace!**


	2. Chapter 2

"Come again!" The last customer finally left the store and Touka was tired like any other day. Kaneki was going to close the store today, which was a relief to her since she could finally leave early for once. She handed the keys to Kaneki. "Don't forget to clean. Oh and bring the manager another coffee, he's feeling a bit better already so he'll probably start working again Monday morning."

To her surprise he already had a cup of coffee prepared. "I can take care of him fine by myself, you know. You don't have to point everything out for me." Kaneki answered her request with a bit too much sass in his tone to Touka's liking.

"Yeah but you would just be a helpless baby without my help." Man… she really was terrible at making comebacks. She decided to drop the topic. After putting on her jacket, she waved a goodbye to Kaneki before leaving the store. On her way home the events of today kept creeping in her head. There was no way that ghouls could get rights. Or was there? For a moment she thought about what Yoriko and everyone at school would think if they knew she was a ghoul, but she quickly shook the idea from her thoughts. She was just tired and getting influenced from hearing about this organization all day. Yeah that must be it. Maybe a good night's sleep would help.

xXxXxXxXx

Ayato was sitting on the roof of the Aogiri hideout, with an annoyed expression on his face. It pissed him of that he wasn't getting any assignments anymore, as a matter of fact no one was getting assignments anymore. Not a single raid has taken place in weeks.

"What is going on in that girls head?" He often wondered these things about Eto. Did she have a plan? Or was something wrong? His thoughts where interrupted when he heard footsteps behind him. Due to his sensitive hearing and the time he had spent there, he immediately recognized the footsteps as Tatara's. "To what do I own the honor of getting a visit by one of the Aogiri tree leaders?" He said, making sure the sarcasm in his voice was obvious.

"I wouldn't get so confident if I were you. Seeing as you doubted Eto just a mere moment ago, I would have more than enough reason to punish you. That is if you were talking about her and not somebody else." He considered Ayato's silence as a confirmation for his suspicions. Tatara kneeled down and sat next to Ayato on the roof, staring of in the distance. "If I'm being honest with you, I'm actually quite worried as well. You can never know what is going on in Eto's head. But seeing as she has always made decisions that played in our favor, I'll decide to trust her on this one as well, like always."

"You're putting too much trust in that girl. Who knows if she will one day sacrifice you to save her own life."

"Then so be it, it's not like I have any purpose in life anymore besides aiding Eto and this organization."

"You really a-" Ayato was interrupted by an explosion that made the whole building shake. Ayato and Tatara rose as chaos erupted underneath them. In an instant they jumped of the building while using their kagune to ensure a, somewhat, soft landing. They started running to where the explosion took place and as they arrived they immediately noticed a massive group of ghouls, possibly half as big as Aogiri tree. Maybe even bigger than that. Some of the guards were already being murdered who were, ironically, put off guard by the explosion, making them an easy kill. The invading ghouls were all wearing red cloaks with a head of a pigeon on it and matching pigeon masks. One of them had a white mask, unlike the gray masks all the other ghouls were wearing, which probably meant he was the leader.

Tatara headed straight for Eto to inform her on the situation, if she didn't already know in the meantime. Thus parting with Ayato without a single word.

"Hey!"Ayato screamed to a nearby guard. "What's going on here?!" The irritation in his voice was pretty obvious.

The guard was even more startled by such a high rank ghoul coming to him during this chaotic situation. "I-I don't know sir there was this explosion and-" Ayato quickly realized it was useless listening to this idiot that clearly didn't know anything about the situation, even though he had been here from the start. There was NO formation, everything was just an enormous chaos making us very easy targets for these pigeon ghouls, as he decided to call them. What was he supposed to do?! Wait for Tatara with Eto and possible backup while everyone was running around here like imbeciles?

There really was no solution besides going in for a counterattack, he took a deep breath and ordered the troops near him. "Everyone group up, we're going in for a counter attack. Send some forces to attack from their rear while we keep them busy in the front. There is a chance we might get backup forces, if they come, lead them to sides to corner the enemy. If they are not going to be here in time, be prepared that you may lose your life today."

He received the usual answer that always sounded like music to his ears "Yes, sir!"

Everyone rushed to the enemy forces, some facing their possible death. When the most unexpected order came from their leader's mouth. "Retreat!"

They are …..retreating? This didn't make any sense, they clearly had the upper hand. Ayato was never hit with so much confusion in one day. His troops stopped in place, clearly being hit with the same confusion, as their enemy was now fleeing. It was then that he noticed the pigeon ghouls were carrying the bodies of some of the killed Aogiri tree guards. Which probably meant this was just a raid for food. It disgusted him that the organization he was a part of was being gazed upon so lowly, being merely good for food in the now so called enemy's eyes.

"It seems a rather unfortunate event has taken place." These words broke the sudden silence that had fallen upon the mass of ghouls.

Ayato turned around even though he already knew who said these words. "yes there has, Eto." He may have used polite words but they were spoken with a rather irritated tone. "It seems we're being looked down upon. Did we really sink that low? Are we now only good as someone's food?"

"I don't think that kind of organization would make such an offensive move for food, I doubt they have any need for a kakuja." She answered

It sounded like a regular answer to Ayato, until he realized something was wrong with the sentence. "Wait… You know who they are?"

"Of course! While you were complaining to all our members about no raids taking place, I was spending my time doing research on ghoul activity. And I came across a very interesting organization that has recently been growing in popularity." Taking a step forward, she held one hand behind her back and pointed with her other hand at the horizon where the group of ghouls took off. "That group calls themselves the pigeons, they're an organization that wants to establish rights for ghouls."

Ayato thought to himself for a moment. Didn't he hear something like that before? And then he remembered, three years ago 5 ghouls started an organization with the exact same name and the exact same goal. He remembered that he laughed at merely the idea itself. Did they grow that big in only three years? How did they even grow at all? But something didn't make sense.

"Why are they killing our members if they're looking for peace?" Ayato asked. Genuinely curious, for once.

"Well, that's the thing. I've been wondering that as well from the moment I got here." If it weren't for her bandages you could see from her forehead alone how hard she was thinking about it. "I suppose we can't do anything but wait, and keep our guard up at the moment. If their first move is already such a mystery to us, it makes me wonder what they plan to do next."

Ayato didn't have an interest in that group, unlike Eto. Since peace between humans and ghouls would mean that it was going to be much harder to take place in raids. The CCG wouldn't be as busy anymore and could focus all their attention on the aggressive ghouls that didn't want to join up with these so called pigeons. This could be really troublesome for him if they ever even managed to make themselves popular with the humans.

Honestly, why was he even worried? It's not like their plan would actually work… he hoped.

But Eto was right. He couldn't do anything else besides wait to see their next move. At least for now.

 **Whew, done. I remember that I always got impatient when other writers took so long to update their stories, but now that I started writing myself I kinda understand why haha. Honestly it's just because writing is kinda at the bottom of the things I need to do in my free time. Well.. If you can still call it free time then xD. You probably can though since I still enjoyed writing this. That's it for this chapter, I hope to see you in the next one** **.**

 **Peace!**


	3. Chapter 3

After some time on the train, Touka arrived at the 20th ward's shopping mall as she looked at her phone and noticed a flaw in her schedule.

 _9:45_

A sigh escaped from her mouth. She got here 15 minutes too early. Maybe waiting in the nearest coffee shop can kill the time until Yoriko arrives?

After walking by several stores she noticed a little shop called 'café blanc'. The wooden tables and counters created a nice and rustic interior for the shop. The walls were decorated with antique coffee blenders sitting on a number of shelves, matching with a coffee themed clock with the text, 'there's always time for coffee'. Touka swiftly grabbed her phone after taking a seat near the counter to start texting Yoriko.

 _I'm at a little coffee shop called café blanc. I'll wait for you here._

At the exact same moment a waiter came to Touka's table. "Are you ready to order, miss?"

Looking up from her phone, Touka saw the waiter. He was quite a handsome young man around her age with green eyes and black, short hair that was longer at the back of his neck.

"Ah, yes. I'd like a regular black coffee, please."

He put away his notebook since it was an easy order to remember. "Alrighty, one black coffee coming up." said the waiter as he immediately started working on Touka's order. "Quite the simple order. Usually girls come in here and order Frappuccino's or milkshakes with some fancy cake."

"Well, I guess I'm not like the ordinary girls then. Shouldn't you focus instead of chatting up your customers." Touka answered.

"Ouch, cold!" the boy chuckled at her response, not taking it too seriously. "What's a pretty lady like you doing here all alone on a Sunday, anyway." He walked up to her table and set down the coffee.

"Thank you." She said, taking a sip of her hot drink. "And I won't be alone that long anymore, I'm waiting for a friend."

"Of course! Girls are never alone. Always together. Like a pack of animals." He laughed and Touka couldn't help herself from smiling a little. "Victory! I made the lady smile!" Grinning at his achievement, the waiter introduced himself. "I'm Kenji, by the way."

"Touka."

"Nice to meet you Touka" Kenji heard another customer calling for him and that was his queue to go back to work. "Hope I'll see you around again."

At that moment the door opened and a familiar looking girl entered the shop.

"Aaaah! Sorry that I'm late Touka. I hope you didn't have to wait too long for me." Yoriko sat down and put her bag next to her while practically screaming her order at the waiter, since he was at the other side of the shop. "One banana milkshake please!"

Going back to the counter while taking a glance at Yoriko he said, "coming right up, miss." Before he rolled his eyes at Touka saying, "I told you so." Referring to their previous conversation topic.

"What's he talking about?" Yoriko asked.

"Oh nothing. Let's just say I wasn't bored waiting for you."

Touka could see by Yoriko's expression that she was a bit annoyed by the fact that she wasn't telling her what it actually meant. Smiling in someone's direction and making them clueless is the best way to tease in Touka's opinion.

xXxXxXxXx

"How much can two girls buy?!" Kaneki said in suprise while opening the door of Anteiku for Touka and Yoriko. They were both holding at least 3 bags in each hand, making them not even able to fit through the door together.

"We just got a little carried away…" Touka answered.

While sending a big grin towards her friend, Yoriko said "Well I set you up to it, didn't I Touka? Seems like your boyfriend is gonna have to blame me for it."

"Yes you did! ...Wait Wha-? He's not my boyfriend!" She made an angry face at Yoriko, which looked strangely cute in her own sort of way.

Kaneki's cheeks went all red after hearing Yoriko's remark. "Hehe.. You shouldn't make jokes like that Yoriko."

Kaneki walked away awkwardly to the counter, ignoring the wink Yoriko sent in his direction, while the girls went to the little living space the shop had and put their bags down. After buying all of the many contents which stuffed their bags they definitely did not have that much money left, but it didn't seem to bother them that much. "I'll make you a coffee Yoriko. I'll be right back."

"Thanks Touka!" She took off her jacket and put it down on a chair. "You drink a lot of coffee though. Too much caffeine is not good for you."

Touka let out a sigh. "I don't really see the problem. I mean, you only live once right? You put that on so many of your pictures, so it must be true!" She hoped that this would make her stop lecturing her. Criticising Touka's eating habbits was starting to turn into a bad habbit of Yoriko. Not that she would change them after hearing it so many times though. After all she was still a Ghoul.

Yoriko puffed up her cheeks. "Of course it's true! It's my life motto!" It seemed as if Yoriko couldn't stop laughing today, a laugh escaping from her mouth at almost every little remark she made. "I absolutely adore the taste of your coffees though. If I had the money, you'd be brewing them for me, as my lovely assistant Touka."

"Even though I enjoy making coffee, I don't think I'd be working efficiently on your demand. Brewing correctly takes a lot of patience that I don't have working for you!" Touka jokingly said while starting on Yoriko's coffee.

As Touka wanted to deliver the girl's order, she got interrupted by her. "Hey Touka, I'm really sorry but my mom texted me that I need to go home. I guess time flies when you're with a friend. Could I take the coffee home with me? I'll return the cup another time."

"Yeah sure, no problem." Touka returned Yoriko's jacket after taking it from the coat rack. "Here you go. Be careful on your way home!"

"Thanks. And I will be, you know me!" Yoriko waved Touka goodbye and walked out of the store. There was no presence in the little shop outside of Kaneki and Touka.

"Must be nice to have a good friend like that." Touka turned around and noticed a sad looking Kaneki. The atmosphere suddenly turned gloomy and she knew exactly why.

"Don't worry, I'm sure that one day you'll be able to see Hide again."

"Thanks…" He said as he tried to fake a smile in Touka's direction, failing, as acting is not Kaneki's strongest suit. "Sorry for ruining the mood."

"Don't worry about it." A sudden silence had fallen between them.

While trying to change the topic, Touka remembered what she wanted to ask. "Oh yeah! I know it's my turn to close the shop today, but I'm pretty tired after going out with Yoriko all day. Think you can close it up again?"

"Yeah sure, you can go home and sleep for today. I'll take care of it." Kaneki answered as Touka grabbed her coat together with his attention, before waving him goodbye and leaving Anteiku

xXxXxXxXx

An anxious secretary walked through the halls of the CCG heading straight for Arima Kishou's office. As she kept her formal status, she strongly knocked on the office door, making Arima notice her presence. "Sir, I'm sorry for intruding, but we have received a very important message."

Arima sat down in his chair clearly not feeling interested, since he already had enough work piling up. "If it's so important then maybe you should go to the director?"

"I did sir, but Mr. Washuu has left on an important business trip to the American commission of counter ghoul office. I contacted him and he told me to deliver any important information straight to your office." She said as she confidently hands over a brown envelope to Arima.

"And what is this exactly?" He asked, opening up the envelope.

"It was delivered by a strange individual this morning along with a letter. It's from the pigeons, sir."

 **And chapter 3 is finished :D. Thank you for all the reviews everyone, It makes me happy to know that people like my story. This chapter was a bit harder to write in my opinion, but I think it turned out alright. Hope to see you all in the next chapter!**

 **Peace!**


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